Super Rugby Pacific 2025: Takeaways From Round 6
Super Rugby Pacific 2025: Takeaways From Round 6
Super Rugby Pacific 2025 is heating up! Discover takeaways from Round 6, including Australia’s rise, defensive struggles and All Blacks selection shifts.
Surging forward at the rate of a runaway train, Super Rugby Pacific 2025 has firmly bedded in its hierarchy of contenders and pretenders.
- Subscribe To FloRugby To Watch Super Rugby Pacific In 2024-25
- Super Rugby Pacific Round 1 | Three Key Takeaways | Strong Aussie Start
- 100 Best Rugby Players In The World: Here's The Full List
- The 25 Best Rugby Clubs In The World On March 5 | FloRugby Rankings
This process has seen a sea of change in where the balance of power lies in the Pacific area with a far more competitive landscape ensuring that, to date, it is nigh on impossible to pick a true dominant contender.
With all of the results now in the books, here are three takeaways from Round 6:
Changing Of The Guard
Heading into this season, few would’ve expected that after six rounds of action that all four Australian sides would be holding court inside the top 6.
While New Zealand holds the top two spots with the Chiefs and Crusaders, respectively, the Australians are hot on their heels.
Spearheaded by the Reds, who comprehensively removed the Waratahs 0 in Round 5, Australian Rugby’s resurgence has been buoyed by four sides jam-packed with talent both on the pitch and in the coaching boxes.
Adding a level of cohesion across the board, all four sides, while offering different wrinkles to their game, each have hallmarks of a similar style.
Key amongst their trademarks has been an attritional approach to the breakdown. Long a staple in Australian Rugby, the four Super franchises clearly have made this a point of focus in 2025.
For this to be the case, one surely must assume Joe Schmidt has put his stamp on his vision for how the Wallabies plan to attack the British and Irish Lions later this season.
Mirroring the Irish provincial and national sides, the Australian sides have shown a great ability to wreak havoc on the opponent’s ball. This has, in turn, stunted the up-tempo attacking games of their trans-Tasman and Pacific Island rivals.
Other areas of improvement have been their tactical kicking games and ability to the contest in the air.
Unlike perhaps any point in the past decade, Australian Rugby has a feeling of alignment that is already yielding results on the pitch. Should they manage to sustain this for the rest of the season and dominate the bulk of the playoff spots, we could be looking at the first Australian winner since the 2014 Waratahs.
Fatigue Affecting All Areas
Spectacular tries, up-tempo sets and ultimate physicality have been the order of the day in the competition thus far this season.
Certainly, the on-field product has had fans out of their seats, which is a major positive given the rather negative circumstances in which the competition was being spoken about ahead of Round 1.
The burning question fans will have is how this style of play will translate to the test arena, with the Northern Hemisphere playing a vastly different game.
To date, teams are conceding an average of 31 points per game and scoring 31 points per game in what feels to be an unsustainable lack of defense when facing stiffer competition.
In Round 6, two of the five fixtures were decided by a score or less, with the other three being 20-plus point defeats.
Of the teams with the best defenses that have played all six matches, the table-topping Chiefs have conceded 168 points for an average of 28 points per match conceded. Contrasting this with the top sides in the URC (Leinster - 14 points per match average), Top 14 (Toulouse - 16 points per match), Premiership (Bath - 21 points per match) and you get a picture of just how porous the Super Rugby defenses are.
Playing a key role in this has been the increased ball in play time, which has taken a significant step forward, as have the generally drier pitches compared to the Northern Hemisphere.
Still over four months out from the kickoff of the international season, it will be interesting to see if teams adapt as the season progresses or whether this trend will continue.
All Blacks Selection Shift
Combining for five wins from a possible 16 between them, the Highlanders, Hurricanes and defending champion Blues all have endured challenging starts to the season.
Focusing on the Blues, firstly, the defending champions have been significantly off the pace to date, with their hordes of All Blacks struggling to find form.
Chief among the players who have yet to get going are international stalwart Reiko Ioane. The utility back has come in for criticism, namely around his positioning in defense and lack of ability to link up with his outside backs.
On the flip side, Chiefs duo Anton Leinart-Brown and Quinn Tupaea have been in red-hot form to start the season.
Adding into the mix, Jordie Barrett, who has been in good form for Leinster in the URC, and Highlanders powerhouse Tanielu Teleʻa, and the All-Blacks midfield suddenly looks pretty congested.
At fly-half, Damian McKenzie has been central to the Chief's run of form, while young Taha Kemara has been really good for the Crusaders. These performances, combined with Will Jordan’s comfort level at fullback, threaten the currently injured Beauden Barrett’s spot in Scott Robertson’s squad later this year.
In the pack, Luke Jacobson has been a standout backrow, and while Ardie Savea has been immense for Moana Pasifika, it will be interesting to see who slots into the seven shirt later this season.
Given the significant gulf in form between the top two Kiwi sides and the other three, there could be a new-look All Blacks squad in 2025.
How To Watch Rugby Matches In The United States On FloRugby
FloRugby and FloSports also are the U.S. home to:
FloRugby also is home to match archives and match replays.